


Stories of the Second Self: Finality

by John_Steiner



Series: Alter Idem [183]
Category: Urban Fantasy - Fandom, Vampires - Fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:21:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25677253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/John_Steiner/pseuds/John_Steiner
Summary: Ellsa Laqouis comes to Papa Delane Henry with a special package that is part of an unspoken agreement between the leader of the Silverton Voodoo Chapter and officials of Cincinnati and federal agencies. However, Delane ponders with the package about whether they have any loved ones or those they've wronged who could claim the soul, since Delane himself hasn't been wronged by his prisoner.
Series: Alter Idem [183]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1618813





	Stories of the Second Self: Finality

"Delane?" Ellsa Laqouis called out, as she entered what she increasingly saw as his main audience chamber. "They sent us another one."

The room was populated by noir furnature, as part of Delane Henry's love of the classics. However, that coexisted with Tolkienesque paintings between fake windows complete with curtains concealing flat screen TVs. The ceiling had been painted as a crisp starry night, but was dominated by a massive broad chandelier. At the far end of the room rose the cast iron throne capped with a real skull on the back.

Being a little after midnight, Delane would've been wrapping up his voodoo ritual to the spirits he offered his prayers to. Before Alter Idem that would've just been a matter of faith, and Ellsa had none, but now it paid real world dividends. Ellsa still didn't believe in it, but she used the little magic Delane taught her.

Delane entered the room from behind the throne. Out of character for himself, Delane wore a dark suit, but his gold-capped immaculate dreads hung over his shoulders as a point of pride. He was authentic New Orleans 9th Ward through and through with strong family ties to Haiti.

Ellsa's own raven black hair spilled all around with a gleam that alluded to the grayness of undeath. Like Delane, Ellsa was a vampire, sporting the same solid black eyes and hollow cheeks and temples.

"Funny," Delane said in a light chipper tone, and strode by his throne. "I didn't recall reading of any problems around town."

"Not in Silverton, no," Ellsa affirmed, "But that D.C. contact of yours says it's a federal case that the feds don't want to touch."

"Ahh," Delane's glance drifted upward in reminiscence. "The agreement. Okay, let us see to our special guest."

"Bring him in, guys," Ellsa turned to address those waiting outside.

Two angels, still strapping their long-barreled Colt 45s strode in side-by-side with a body bag held lengthwise between them.

"Cops didn't want us using the gurney, Papa Henry," one of the angels said with due observance to Delane's leadership over the Silverton Voodoo Chapter.

"A fair point," Delane accepted, and waved the angels on. "Let's unwrap in the work room."

Following behind, Ellsa took particular relish at this moment. Going through the hall running the back of the audience chamber, they went to the fair end into a room of bare cement and a metal table as the sole feature.

Delane plunked the zipper in two fingers and drew it down slow enough to savor the moment. Revealed in the parting black polypropylene were equally black eyes of a duct tape gagged face. Further down, Ellsa noticed the multiple zip-tie restraints placed higher up around the elbows rather than the wrists. A fact explained when she noticed the right hand torn off with jagged shattered bone revealed.

"Ohh!" Delane delighted at the sight. "The Highland Avenue Active Shooter. I remember this one. They say he's the last of the Hard Six from Texas. I do enjoy reading their exploits from before the federal occupation. Like a modern wild west."

"What do we do with the soul?" Ellsa wondered.

"He hasn't wronged me personally," Delane answered, "So I have no claim over it, but it feels like such a waste to just him drift through to the other side. Can we find no next of kin or one of his surviving victims who wants to keep him around?"

"Your contact couldn't find anything." Ellsa strode around the table, watched by the vampire, Gerald Carey.

"Looks like he's got something to say, Papa Henry," one of the angels noted.

"Hmm, I'll risk it," Delane replied and waved Ellsa on.

After pulling up a corner of tape, a sharp rip followed Ellsa's deft hand motion. Gerald didn't gasp, but he looked relieved. "Hey, you don't need to do this. I can be useful."

"Can you think of someone who misses you?" Delane asked, and then added, "Or maybe someone you've wronged?"

"What?" Gerald sputtered with uncertainty, and then thought about it. "They claimed I was Open Feeding, but they couldn't prove shit."

"No, no, no, no," Delane dismissed, waving his hand aside. "I mean truly aggrieved someone. An affront that is lifelong. Roughing up a few people or feeding off them doesn't count, and they need to still be alive. See, that where we have a problem."

"What was all that about my soul?" Gerald grew even more concerned.

"What indeed." Delane seemed not to grasp the core of the question, instead mulled aloud, "You see, I'm a man of deep faith. However, the only souls I know to exist are ones collected by myself, because I can render them visible and empower them to act in the real world."

"Are you some kind of witch?" Gerald dreaded.

"You need to address him with due respect as Papa Henry," an angel warned, "Got that?"

"The term is Bokor," Delane directed his answer to Gerald, "Or at least for men it is. See, when all this became real the Houngan and Mambo were the priests and priestesses in Voodoo. However, it's us Bokors, and the lady Caplatas, who proved to have real power. So we became the priests. I'm a Bokor Asogwe, making me a high priest, and I run the Silverton Chapter. And yet, I honestly cannot say if unclaimed souls really exist. I haven't seen any that predate Alter Idem."

"Why do you want my soul," Gerald asked.

The angel pulled his revolver and switched to gripping by the barrel to crack the butt against Gerald's head, and then reiterated, "He's Papa Henry. Don't make me tell you again."

"You're such a fascinating creature," Delane beamed with a shaking head, as though he were tucking a little child into bed, to whom he cooed, "I mean, an entire shift of the Texas Highway Patrol? Just the six of you. Before that, you were terrorizing roadside diners and motels. Back in the day, they used to write pulp novels about people like you.

"All that possibly vanishing in a wink," Delane said with a snap of his fingers and glance up to the ceiling, and then looked down again. "If there really is an afterlife no one can say. But spirits of people can be made real. Some say they're just copies, but copied so well I treat them as being the same as the people they were in life."

"But we're the same, Papa Henry." Gerald tone shifted to pleading. "Shouldn't vampires look out for each other?"

That invoked hearty laughter from Ellsa, who belatedly covered her mouth with fingertips as she glanced over. "Oh my, he is precious!"

Delane himself chuckled, "I all this time as a vampire and you think that should matter? The living don't band together like that, so why should we? This is just a thing that happened to me. Ellsa's sponsored, but myself, and you also I suspected, didn't handpick this state of being. I think I would've gone for a lich, to be perfectly honest."

"I'm sorry, Papa Henry, but I don't know what that is," Gerald replied.

"No point in introducing you to D and D now," Delane said, clasping his hand and ready for business. "Alright boys, do you have the UVC lights?"

"Right here, Papa Henry," one angel said.

Carefully, Ellsa and Delane applied their own restraint straps onto Gerald before cutting the police ties. For living subjects Delane would've used ritual knives, but for vampires he preferred the more grueling slow burn of focused UV lights. The agony was more intense, and needed if Delane were to collect the soul. Even so, Ellsa knew Delane valued keeping in practice.

Ellsa carried out a Y-incision burn with her smaller pocket UVC light, and exposed Gerald's internal organs. They too seared and sizzled under ultraviolet light, and Gerald's screams became screeches under the stress to his vocal cords.

At the end of it all Ellsa witnessed the essence of Gerald's soul lazily drift up and vanish like vapor. It was that omitted final step that would've preserved all Gerald Carey was into a magically bound incorporeal entity. Instead, if there were an other side, Ellsa doubted much would come of Gerald there. Life, death, and undeath taught Ellsa that there clearly was no final judge.


End file.
